Tillo Lando February 22nd,20XX

A wave of white coats and identically eager faces filed into the room like a line of kindergartners. They all looked different in terms of build and nationality, but the eager way that they looked all of us over and the nervous way that they looked at Joyce made them look like siblings.

“Okay, you can all introduce yourselves. And tell them your specialties.”

I thought she meant us kids and prepared to give a self-introduction, but the scientists quickly traded looks and one of them, a friendly looking but short lady, stepped forward.

“Hello, My name is Ivette and I’m a theoretical physicist. I’ll be in charge of figuring out how your abilities apply to the actual world and affect things outside of yourself!”

She stepped back into the mass of white lab coats and someone else stepped out, this time a stocky and somewhat scary-looking man. He pushed his glasses up his face and forced a smile onto his face as he gave his self-introduction.

“Hello, My name is Danka and I’m a surgeon. I’ll be in charge of patching any of you together with if you ever get hurt and in terms of your powers, I’ll be able to check how much strain it gives you and work with you on finding techniques to cope.”

He melted back into the sea of white clothing and exchanged his place with that of a taller and plumper man.

“Hey, kids! My name is Nagi and I’m an Application Engineer. I’m going to be looking at your powers and seeing if there is anything that I can create to help you manage them! An example is an app for Aaron that can calculate an object or person’s weight from a picture!”

His voice was loud and boomed around the room in a friendly rebound. Just like the others, he merged back into the pod of scientists he’d come from and another one took his place.

This scientist was a pretty older woman that spoke with a calm voice.

“Hello, my name is Anatha and I’m a general practitioner and therapist. I’ll be working with Danka to make sure you’re all physically and mentally at your best.”

Her introduction was one of the shortest, but it was the sweetest and I felt like I liked her the most. She seemed just as excited as the rest of them, but she restrained herself well and gave off a calm atmosphere.

A bright looking young guy stepped forward and started his introduction.

“My name is Sema and I’m a technician! I’m in charge of running all the scary technology you saw earlier! I work closely with Ivette to test the bounds of your abilities and, hopefully, help you control them better.”

“I’m Marsha and I’m a biologist. With your consent, I’ll be running a few tests on you all and trying to figure out exactly how these powers have changed you all, and possibly why.”

“And I’m Scorda. I’m a chemist! Since I was just added in to fill in the trinity of biology, physics and chemistry, I’ll be working with everyone on a bit of everything. You’ll see me working with Marsha to narrow down the differences in your bodies from other, regular humans, and you’ll also see me working with the engineers to come up with technology for you all. And finally, you’ll see me working with the doctors and making sure all of you don’t end up breaking any of the laws I spent seven years in school to master!”

Joyce started a round of applause for the scientists, but though it was a friendly thing to do, they all jolted when she spoke and constantly traded nervous looks between themselves and Joyce. I wondered why they were so scared of her, but since I wasn’t a mind reader, all I could do was wonder and wish I knew.

“Okay, now I’m going to go through all the kids and the names you’ll be using to address them.”

She pointed to Destia.

“This is Kila. And she is a speed user. She can also go invisible.”

Destia looked taken aback by the sudden code name, but tried her best to smile at it. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it also wasn’t great.

Joyce’s finger moved to Kaja, but before she could give out the nickname, Kaja jumped in.

“You can call me Shia and you can call my little brother Ernate.”

Joyce looked slightly discontent at not being able to give out the nicknames she had created but didn’t correct Kaja and continued with her introduction. It was in line with her theme of using ancient god’s names, so I doubted she had anything too different.

“They’re shapeshifters and can also manipulate the physical properties of inanimate things.”

I didn’t hate the idea of having code names, but I had to question the need for them. It wasn’t like she was going to hide our identities from the scientists, since she was making us into public figures. It would only be a matter of time before they stumbled across a picture or an article.

We also would not use our powers outside of this building. It wasn’t like a supervillain was waiting in the shadows for all of us to use our powers and protect the world.

She moved over to Archer and Eva.

“And the final two. Zafuri for the boy and Jedeyi for the girl. The boy is a receiving telepath and can use telekinesis. The girl is an expelling telepath, as in she can speak into others’ minds, and can create illusions as well. You won’t have to work with the child yet, as she is still young and likely won’t use her powers often.”

While it made sense, I disagreed.

From the little knowledge I had of Eva’s powers, I’d figured she would need the most attention out of all of us. She was a kind kid and didn’t seem to enjoy using her powers much, but we’d only known her for a day and a half. We hadn’t even seen her get angry or happy yet. Her powers were a little too scary to take such a hands-off approach.

“And you kid should call him Cyrus while you’re down here. It will feel redundant to all of you for now, but I’ll insist on you all using the code names.”

She was right in that it felt redundant to me, but since she insisted then there wasn’t much I could do.

Honestly, this all felt incredibly overwhelming. The underground building, the flock of scientists, the Duties we had.

I felt my heart speed up with anxiety as I realized just how insane the past few days had been. First Kaja and I had made our way out of the city to stalk Joyce, then Aaron had caught us in that shed and had brought us into the house. We’d met Archer and Eva the morning before being rushed down to an amusement park in another city.

After that, Aaron had brought us back to the city where we’d received apartments that looked like they ran rents in the millions. After, Joyce took us down to an underground lair where we would be analyzed and trained as supers.

And we, all five of us kids, had just gone along with it.

Well, I understood why Archer and Eva had. Neither Joyce of Aaron had told me anything, but the bruises on Archer’s face and his over-defensive method of looking out for Eva didn’t make it hard to guess why they had followed Joyce home.

Destia seemed to have her reasons as well. But what about Kaja and me?

Kaja’s hand suddenly wrapped around mine, and she subtly shook her head at me. She waited until Joyce wasn’t looking at us before leaning over and whispering at me.

“Calm down and breathe. We can talk it out later, but we’re fine for now. I promise.”

It was tacky, but hearing that made me calm down.

Yeah, we were okay for now. And with our powers, if we wanted to run away and change our appearances, there was no way they could find us.

I liked Joyce and Aaron enough, but so much had happened in such a short amount of time that I couldn’t say I trusted them. Not yet.